Thursday, January 3, 2019

Latest project: Producing and Directing Evil Dead the Musical in Chicago!

Hi everyone!  Those of you keeping tabs over at my theater company Black Button Eyes Productions (www.blackbuttoneyes.com) are probably already aware, but in a week or so we start performances of the latest show I'm directing: Evil Dead the Musical!

Performances are January 11 through February 16, 2019, with official opening night on January 18. This is by far the largest project I've ever attempted, and I'm being stretched to my absolute limit, but I'm excited about what it could be.  Check us out if you get a chance- tickets are for sale at evildeadchicago.brownpapertickets.com.

Before rehearsals started we took some pretty cool photos to promote the show- check them out!  People familiar with Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movie series will probably recognize a lot of this...








Photos by Cole Simon, Makeup by Syd Genco. Jordan Dell Harris playing Ash, and Caitlin Jackson playing Cheryl.






Monday, May 29, 2017

I know it's been a while...

Hi everyone! I know it's been ages since I've posted here. That's partly because I've started to keep a blog over at my theatre company's website, BlackButtonEyes.com. To see the latest and greatest that I'm up to (including the Chicago Storefront Premiere of Shockheaded Peter this Summer) and thinking about, check over there for now. Thanks!

Friday, January 13, 2017

Production Photos for DCASE Individual Artist Grant Application




Welcome! Please find my 10 grant application photos below. Please click on each photo to view a larger version. Thank you!

Production Photo, The Last Unicorn, 2009:




Production Photos, Coraline, 2014:







Production Photos, Goblin Market, 2015:









Production Photos, Amour, 2016:




Thursday, November 5, 2015

Thank Heaven for Creepy Dolls (An Ode to Jeannie)

As those of you who know my aesthetic were probably already aware, I love me some creepy dolls and puppets onstage. My guidance to props designers I work with is usually to find something as off-putting as possible when we use them. For instance, when I directed Caucasian Chalk Circle  for Promethean Theatre Ensemble a few years back, this is the puppet we used to represent Michael, the young child that is the cause of the plot's major dispute:

And, when Sara Gorsky (who played our lead Grusha, but was also working on the show's PR and Marketing a bit) sent me a series of stock photos we might choose as the show's marketing/poster image, I fell in love with THIS one at first sight:

Looking back at my last few shows, this is definitely turning into an aesthetic mini-trend for me- when I did Coraline back in 2014, when I was considering the best way to represent the dead ghost children, we wound up decapitating some dolls and putting LED lights in the to make them glow:


....which brings us to Goblin Market. When I was planning my way through the blocking and stage pictures for the show, one idea I had involved the staging of the song "Do You Not Remember Jeannie," sung by the character Lizzie to her sister Laura. In it, Lizzie castigates Laura for having stayed out late with the goblins and eaten their fruit, reminding her of the horrible fatal demise of a girl they knew named Jeannie who had fallen into the same trap years ago:

"She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died..." 
 
The number is a fun little confection that mixes foreboding with a bit of saltiness and humor at the same time. And to embody that, I decided that we would have Lizzie use on of the dolls from their toy shelf to represent "Jeannie," both for the sillier parts at the start of the song, and also to give it a doll funeral of sorts in the toy chest when the song becomes darker and more melancholy near the end. My props designer, Rocky Kolecke, really outdid herself with the doll that she found to be Jeannie:

 


She's a beaut, ain't she?  Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to work with her again- she was a total diva in rehearsal. Here she is right after our stage manager told her that break time was over:
 
 


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Music Man Sequel Titles

A friend of mine, David Lipschutz, and I, were recently joking around on Facebook and decided to play a quick game of Parody Sequels-  where you each try to one up each other on the best (by which I mean WORST) parody sequel titles to musicals that have no need whatsoever for sequels. There actually is some precedent for sequels to musicals, though they generally wind up in the rubbish pile of musical history:

Annie Warbucks (the sequel to Annie)

Bring Back Birdie (the sequel to Bye Bye Birdie)

Love Never Dies (the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera)

The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public (if you have to ask...)
 

In general, musicals have an even more dismal record as far as successful sequels than film franchises, and certainly a worse record than books.  The only sequels I can think of off the top of y head that were truly successful and worthy works of art in their own right were William Finn's Falsettos musicals.

With all of that in mind, below please find David and my ideas for likely sequels to The Music Man:

Prequel: The Music Boy
Muthic Man 2: Winthrop'th Revenge
Music Man 3: Pick a Little, Kill a Little
Music Man 4: Paroot of All Evil
Music Man 5: My Fright Night
Music Man 6: Sadder but Deader Girl

Would love to hear any of your suggestions for additional music man sequels (or other unnecessary sequels to musicals) in the comments!

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

We Play Rough.

On Sunday November 1, we struck the set, costumes and other items for Goblin Market. One of the things we had to return was a borrowed dressmaker's dummy that we got from Sacred Art, the store run by our marketing and PR director, Kate Merena. We used the dummy as a stand in for the girls in the show- at one point, both of the actresses are playing goblins who are tempting one of the sisters, and we used the dummy to represent the sister who is being tempted, being acted upon and caressed by both of the actresses playing goblins.  As the scene teaches its climax, the dummy gets knocked over and one of the sisters removed her goblin mask and steps back into the scene as herself. Unfortunately, this dummy was made of fiberglass, and unbeknownst to us until strike, the knocking over of the dummy across 19 performances had a, ahem, deleterious effect:



What can I say? When we play, we play rough.

p.s.- Kate knew what we were going to use it for and was totally cool about it. Thanks Kate!

Monday, November 2, 2015

More Goblin Market photo goodness

There were many photos of Goblin Market by our excellent show photographer Cole Simon that turned out great- but only a few could become the official press photos. Here's some of the rest that I really enjoyed: